Monday, May 25, 2015

Monday pythagorean - 5/25/2015

A 3-3 week, at home, is not great. But all things considered, this was a much better week than I envisioned it being on Friday night...

The Week That Was:

5/19 - @Boston 4 - Texas 3 - In their return home after splitting 10 games on the road, the Sox score in the first, Wade Miley puts up his fourth good start in a row in May, and struggling Mike Napoli goes deep for the first time in a week, and Boston starts the homestand with a win.

5/20 - Texas 2 - @Boston 1 - The offensive struggles continue as Joe Kelly gives up single runs in the 2nd and 3rd, and that's all the Rangers would need, as Boston gathers 9 hits and 3 walks, and has the tying run in scoring position in the 6th, 7th and 9th, but only scores on a Xander Bogaerts solo HR.

5/21 - Texas 3 - @Boston 1 - Clay Buchholz fights through a tough first inning and ends up allowing only two earned runs in 7 1/3 innings. But that was more than enough as the Red Sox' offensive performance drops to an almost unbelievable 2.32 runs/game for the first 19 games of May.

5/22 - LAA Angels 12 - @Boston 5 - Following a nine-game stretch in which the Red Sox never score more than 4, and in which they average fewer than 2 runs per game, they manage to put up nine against the Angels. Unfortunately, Rick Porcello melted down in the 5th, and Boston had perhaps its worst inning of the season as the Angels score 9 runs against Porcello and two relievers in an inning that lasts nearly 40 minutes.

5/23 - @Boston 8 - LAA Angels 3 - Mike Napoli hit two two-out HR, and the Red Sox, who have struggled to score runs all month, finally score more than six. After all of the games with two runs or fewer, they score two runs in three consecutive innings. Steven Wright pitches well, and they break the three game losing streak.

5/24 - @Boston 6 - LAA Angels 1 - Mike Napoli, who was the source of such concern a week ago, goes deep for the fourth time in three games and fifth time on the week. Wade Miley is outstanding, allowing no baserunners through the first four innings, and finishing with 8 strong innings and fewer than 100 pitches, to get Boston even on the week.

Thoughts and commentary...

If you had told me before the season started that, when Memorial Day arrived, the Red Sox would be 2 1/2 games out in the East, I would not have been too surprised. If you'd told me that they would be two games under .500, I would have been a little more surprised. If you had told me that they would have the second-worst run differential in the American League, I would have been shocked. But that's where they are.

Given the third item on that list, they're lucky about the second. And phenomenally lucky about the first.

The fifth inning of Friday night's game may or may not have been the season's nadir, but we can sure hope that it was. I got in my car to drive to Boston as the second man of the inning was coming to the plate. When I stopped in Stoneham to get gas, the Red Sox were changing pitchers. When I got off at Government Center, they were changing pitchers again. When I turned on to Park Street, the inning was finally ending. It was one of the most miserable rides I can ever remember...

There are 250 Major League baseball players with more than 45 at-bats in the month of May. 2491 of them have driven in at least one run. The one glaring exception - Hanley Ramirez.

Friday night, in game 42, we first saw the outfield that many of us expected, and hoped, to see - Ramirez in LF, Betts in CF, and Rusney Castillo in RF. The night was a disaster, but not because of the outfield, and I expect that to be the defensive alignment more often than not the rest of the way.

Red Sox Goat of the Week - Rick Porcello was given a 3-2 lead as they headed to the 5th inning on Friday night. He proceeded to walk the first two men and allow two singles and a double (plus a steal of third) wrapped around a ground out before being pulled. He allowed 7 runs in just 4 1/3 innings and spoiled the best offensive performance in over a week.

Red Sox Player of the Week - Many members of the offense continued to struggle, with the 3rd-best offensive performance (Pedroia) being fairly weak. But there were two notable exceptions. Xander Bogaerts (.455/.478/.682/1.160, 6.21 runs created, 12.94 RC/25 outs) put up the kind of performance that very often results in a Player of the Week award. Unfortunately for him, he did it over the same stretch that Mike Napoli hit (.429/.500/1.190/1.690, 9.75 runs created, 20.32 RC/25 outs, 5 HR, 10 RBI).

Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - Other than Rick Porcello, the starting pitching was very good, and the best came from Wade Miley, who started, and won, two of the Sox' three victories on the week, pitching 15 innings and allowing only 3 runs for an ERA of 1.8.

About Me

Native-Mainer, trapped in Massachusetts, happily-married (18 years and counting) father of four. I've got opinions. Why do you care? You probably don't. But I'm going to put some of 'em out here anyway. I've been working as a computer engineer in Massachusetts and southern NH for the last 20 years, but I'm rarely if ever going to post on any topics related to that. A lot of what I write about will be the Boston Red Sox, as well as the Patriots and Celtics. I started studying Tang Soo Do after watching my kids all do it, and I may have the occasional comment on that. And I will be commenting on political issues that interest me. Which tend to be more national in scope than local.
And whatever else strikes me.